Of Moonlit Skies and Tempered Lies
by Sabeth


[Prologue]  
  
Skie lounged lazily in the soft silvery color-tinted glow of the three moons. The blood smeared over his hands and up his arms was beginning to coagulate into a sticky mess. He idly yawned, stretched, then smiled in morbid satisfaction as multiple joints popped and settled. After finding a more comfortable position, he eyed the kneeling elf, held by a simple spell, a few feet away from him.  
"What right do you think you have to challenge me, girl?" He sneered. "You are a fool. Your pride and ambition and arrogance have cost you. Look where your own stupidity has gotten you." He paused and licked a bit of the blood off of his arm. "And look where it has gotten your friends, as well. Imagine their faces once again as you betray them." He chuckled softly.  
"I did nothing to betray them," she replied, her voice quiet and harsh. "You where right in saying that I am a fool; I deserve no better a title. I was blind to your trickery. Now I have paid my due, having to watch you tear my dearest friends apart. Release me, so I may find some way to repent for my ignorance."  
Getting to his feet, Skie laughed and slowly drew his shortsword, sauntering over to her still form. "Release you? Then I would be the fool, and that is nigh impossible. Do you truly believe that I would let you go so you could play the coward and stab me in the back whilst my head is turned?" He spat on the ground in front of her. "No, I will not. It is better for us all if this ends here, now. Your death will be a consolation to many. You're not exactly the picturesque 'fair hero', are you? Few would cry over your spilled blood, your former friends most of all." Skie stepped closer, running his fingers slowly over the ornate hilt of his sword and dissolving the spell of holding.  
"How do you think they'll receive you in Hell? How do you think they- " he gestured to the torn and mangled corpses lying around them, "-will welcome you for all eternity?"  
With that, he thrust his sword, aiming for a spot between her second and third ribs. She happened to choose that very same moment to launch herself backwards, swinging her right arm and fist upwards, driving her boot knife hilt-deep into his throat as he stumbled over her.  
"Looks like you underestimated me again, Skie." She laughed as his lifeblood spilled over her hand and down her arm, dripping off at her bent elbow. She yanked the knife out roughly and shoved his body to the ground as she rose to her feet.  
His wide-eyed gaze narrowed as he fell, dimming as his life was gushed away through the rent in his neck. With a last burst of strength born of fear and anger, he managed to swing his sword up and catch her along the back of both calves, hamstringing her. She clung to a low-hanging branch to maintain her balance.  
As fresh blood not his own spilled over his face and chest, he fell back to the ground, a delirious smirk of triumph on his face, which suddenly changed to immense and almost unfathomable sadness.  
"And so it ends with us yet again, Lithian," he gurgled, gripping her ankle. "You are not such a fool after all...See you in Hell, then, my Love..." The light of life died in his eyes as blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth.  
Lithian fell to her knees, clutching her boot knife in a white knuckled grip, amazed at the tears that, after all these many years, still managed to flow. "Yes. So it ends at last. I have won yet again, as you have won many times before, as well. Which of us shall stand as I am standing the next time around? How many times must we spill the blood of our other half, never knowing until the very last second what we have done?"  
She raised her fist towards the heavens sobbing in anger. "By the Gods, I curse thee, cruel Fate! When shalt you release us?"  
Lowing her arm and lifting her eyes to the stars, she swiftly drew the already bloody blade across her throat, then fell atop the still-warm body of Skie, her own lifeblood spilling his and intermixing, then soaking into the cool dirt. After a few moments, the knife slipped from her limp fingers as the light began to rapidly leave her deep green eyes.  
With her last dying breath, she managed to gasp out a last cryptic truth before the darkness took her. Her words, though spoken almost soundlessly, echoed among the leafy trees like a melancholy sigh of the wind through the branches, and then she was gone once again from this world, though soon to return. The moons still shone and the breeze still blew, almost as if in anticipation. The whole world seemed to wait. Her words continued to echo.  
"An ending and a beginning, both one and the same..."  
  
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End file.
